Like the true temperamental star, he had a meteoric rise, was in the high heavens for awhile, and then fell as sharply. Unlike Amitabh Bachchan, his co-star in hits like Anand and Namak Haram, who showed his staying power, ruling over the film industry for a good part of three decades, Rajesh Khanna fell sharply and by the advent of the 1980s was getting passed over for younger heroes.
The Rajesh Khanna phenomenon came at a unique and transitional moment of Hindi cinema, the decade of the 1960s, spilling into the early 1970s. It is a period in Indian film history which hasn’t received as much attention from researchers and writers as have the periods immediately preceding and the decade that followed. It was an era of immense versatility, which however remains sandwiched between, and overwhelmed by, the post-independence era of the 1950s— the era of Raj Kapoor and his contemporaries, and the iconic angry young man years of the 1970s and 80s. Rajesh Khanna epitomized that versatility of his age in his entire persona, on and off screen. He starred in a range of films, where he was the suave wooer of women, the fragile tragic hero in the mould of Barua or Saigal’s Devdas, and the classic Hollywood style urbane operator in super-hits like The Train. He could emote, he could dance and he could be both tragic and comic.
The Rajesh Khanna phenomenon held ground until the Hindi film hero became an almost uni-dimensional fighting-killing machine by the 80s. Rajesh Khanna’s waning away also signalled a certain standardizing of Hindi films. Unlike with Rajesh Khanna, who was used in remarkably different ways by directors as diverse as Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Shakti Samanta, the period that followed increasingly saw the making of a very specific ‘formula’ for success. Off screen, as well, he was unpredictable, famous for turning up late for shoots and starry tantrums, a contrast to Bachchan, who was known for his professionalism. Rajesh Khanna's relationships were as unpredictable— it seemed he cared very little for what the world thought about him. In every way, he was in the league of the classic star, don’t-carish, temperamental and full of charm when he wanted to be.
Rajesh Khanna epitomized romance, more than any other Hindi film hero. He was the urbane charmer who held sway before the underdog came to rule the roost of Hindi films. Khanna like his immediate predecessors and contemporaries Dev Anand and Shammi Kapoor embodied a kind of Hollywood-ish cosmopolitanism which few other heroes had. He wore trendy outfits, drove swanky cars and sported the lover-boy image. His heroines complemented him with their bouffants and stylish manners. Yet, he could also be the dhoti clad Bengali babu, reminiscent of an older school, in an Amar Prem. Even in his later years, when he switched to being a ‘character’ actor in films like Aakhir Kyon, where he starred with Smita Patil, he stood out for being different from the run-of-the mill industry product.